Chatrooms and Conferences

I've been using Trillian for years but really can't stand the direction it's gone in the past year so started looking for another multi-protocol client.  I googled for comparisons and Digsby was highly rated, so gave it a shot.  I couldn't figure out how to do group chat, so googled and found this thread and read through the first page, but noted it was dated 2008.  So I searched the forum, found the most recent thread requesting this feature (dated 8/09) and was surprised to find a developer responded linking back to this thread.  I jumped to the last page and you already know what I found.   I own a software development company, I know what feature implementation takes, but when you have almost 90% of your users (based on your own surveys) screaming for a feature for a year and ignore that feature request (hell, DEMAND!) ... well, you get what's coming to you.

So count me as another one who registered only to say that I'm uninstalling this.  Perhaps Digsby includes people who register in the forums when touting the number of users they have.  In that case, I guess I've now upped their total by 1... or 2 if they count downloads as well .

+1.  Same story.  Really want to use digsby, but this is a critical part of my day to day chatting.  Please just do this.  Stop all other development. You'll literally double your user base if you add multi user chat.  It's an invite button.  You can already participate in them, just can't start them. Sad to uninstall your product, but without this feature it is not usable.

Amen. This would pretty much be the standard throughout our organization if it could do jabber chat rooms. But instead we'll have to go with another client.

After using Digsby for about 6 months, I'm going to have to uninstall.  The lack of group chat is just unworkable in a professional environment where collaboration is key.  And boy, if I ever told my users in what disdain I held their wishes (as Digsby devs on this forum have) I'd be out of a job in nothing flat. 

I appreciate that this is a free product, but to ignore the need for group chat expressed by such a majority is silly.  And to act in such an unprofessional manner in the process is one of the best ways to ensure uninstalls. 

Thank you, but good bye.  Pidgin, here I come.  Or maybe back to Trillian (which I really don't care for, but will at least does groups).

That's over a year now waiting for group chat to be implemented! Can we have someone tell us the truth? Is it coming or not? Really is a kick in the teeth for all us Digsby users that have been waiting for over a year now for this feature and still not a work on it. Please can we get this sorted so we can proudly say that Digsby is the best IM client out there? I must admit it makes the devs look bad if they can't tackle this feature which has been done on most of the other IM clients.

mkstalen wrote:

(2009-05-12 17:04:30) After waiting over 12 months for the Conference feature (which should be a standard feature) to appear I'm finally bailing on Digsby.
There's been no progress on this feature and no commitment from the developers to implement it.
I'm trading it in for Trillian Astra which covers most of what Digsby does, but more importantly it has all the features I require.

Good luck guys, maybe I'll check back in 6 months to see if you've gotten anywhere with this.

Well, it's been 6 months, and whilst there's been some talk of this being "almost" at the top of the list of priorities there's still been no word that it's actively being worked on.

So in total it's been 18 months since people have been asking for this, and we still can't see and end in sight. I hope no one is holding their breath.

this is nuts. how can this be such a blocker? how is it that practically every other chat client out there - even the lamest of tiny projects - can support conference chat, but digsby doesn't? i was recommending to staff that they switch to digsby (i run our own openfire chat server for secure internal IM) but the lack of group/conference IM makes it a no go now (we don't use group chat all that often, but when we do, we need it!).

it's the highest voted requested feature. it's been 'in the works' getting on towards two years now. what's the problem? why, digsby, why?

anastrophe wrote:

this is nuts. how can this be such a blocker? how is it that practically every other chat client out there - even the lamest of tiny projects - can support conference chat, but digsby doesn't? i was recommending to staff that they switch to digsby (i run our own openfire chat server for secure internal IM) but the lack of group/conference IM makes it a no go now (we don't use group chat all that often, but when we do, we need it!).

it's the highest voted requested feature. it's been 'in the works' getting on towards two years now. what's the problem? why, digsby, why?

Duh! You can't see why they aren't doing this? It's simple! They don't want to have to worry about all of the usage that they'll have if they implement this, so by self limiting and not including this basic feature, they are limiting their user base at about 50% -- see? It's a very smart move, they don't want to grow too much too soon, and Digsby sees this and wants to look out for already existing users!

O_o How'd you see through our plot tehbishop! ^_^

But seriously, this is long over do and it's really close on the todo list. It's actually been "the next thing" a few times, but something a little higher priority keeps getting shoved in that pushes it back. Only so many things at a time 4 programmers can get to, we should be able to get to it fairly soon though.

joel wrote:

I hope for yahoo chat and AIM conferences and such.

I'm also definitely diggin' digsby, but need the conference for my work at home job....so have to turn off yahoo IM in digsby to use it....I also can't use the sms feature in digsby, I can receive sms msgs from cell phone users, I just can't reply to them...sigh...another reason to have to turn Yahoo back on...I would really like only having to use digsby...great system, just spoiled w/some other features from other IM programs...

Aaron wrote:

O_o How'd you see through our plot tehbishop! ^_^

But seriously, this is long over do and it's really close on the todo list. It's actually been "the next thing" a few times, but something a little higher priority keeps getting shoved in that pushes it back. Only so many things at a time 4 programmers can get to, we should be able to get to it fairly soon though.

thanks aaron. obviously, frustration can get the best of the wild masses sometimes. i work at a development company with several developers, and i know how things can get pushed back, it's just the nature of the development cycle (and P1 bugs).

we use local conference chat only occassionally, so for the time being, i can make do with just firing up the spark client (blech) if we absolutely have to get a conference going.

the questions are when and how to make this come about to a reality quicker...it's been a long time since my first post.

I also work in the software industry so understand features, requirements and the fact we don't have unlimited days to work on requests.  I would've hoped a little more progress would've been made in over a year though on a topic that seems to be on the forums here and there.

Digsby looks like a nice little aggregate chatter (just downloaded and installed today), but I'll be uninstalling it now that I have confirmation that conferencing doesn't exist.  I use it daily for work so there's no way to get around it.

well i like Digsby but i MUST have this chat functionality too! Please add it, so i could use Digsby instead of Pidgin now. Without this feature i can't switch communicators.

Yes, I would love chat feature asap too. This is of utmost importance to improve commucication between the in-laws.

Aaron wrote:

O_o How'd you see through our plot tehbishop! ^_^

But seriously, this is long over do and it's really close on the todo list. It's actually been "the next thing" a few times, but something a little higher priority keeps getting shoved in that pushes it back. Only so many things at a time 4 programmers can get to, we should be able to get to it fairly soon though.

Just keepin a positive spin on things. Hopefully it'll get to the to do list soon.

The new update looks good, see the new Facebook changes, but not this. Argh. Hoping that Digsby goes 'corporate' or whatever this feature is that isn't as important as facebook -- maybe this IS a ploy to keep all 'Business' folks on Trillian and focus only on the kids/non business peoples? Aaron, might that be true? (was just kidding, but perhaps thats not a bad idea / marketing swim lane to stay focused on?)

when? soon hopefully...

The chat room feature is the only thing that is keeping me with trillian. The longer disgby continues to keep that feature out, the longer it will take for me to change over full time.

I know we really shouldn't be complaining seeing that this is a free program and all. Seeing that is it free, they aren't obligated to do anything else to it and can pretty much tell us all that are requesting this to take a hike off a short plank. Which in the case of this particular option, I think that is what they are doing ...

Last edited by x2k9x (2010-02-15 01:28:03)

So the new version still doesn't improve on xmpp group chat? sad.